Evigheden
by phattrash
Summary: A "Frozen" Wincest AU in which a great many plot details and several supporting characters are altered to suit my devious machinations.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story gets cheerier later on, I promise. **

* * *

><p>For as long as Dean could remember, he'd been prevented from seeing his little brother regularly. "It's best for everyone this way," his mother and father had always said to him, coaxing him away from the tall black door that Sam spent years hidden behind. Dean hated it when they said that; on the occasion that Sam was allowed to see him, albeit with several palace guards keeping dutiful watch in the background, he was a great little brother. The feeling Dean got at seeing Sam smile bashfully at something he'd said was one of the best things he knew. He liked making Sam laugh, cherished the knowledge that he was one of the most important people in Sam's life.<p>

As such, every long day spent away from his little brother was cloaked in loneliness and a tiny, odd ache in the middle of his chest, made stronger every time Sam was released out to meet him and greeted him with a wide, dimpled grin. It was on the night of Dean's twelfth birthday that an unfortunate turning point was reached, after which Sam stayed cooped up away from him for the desolately long duration of ten years.

He didn't get to see his brother's face once during that span of time.

* * *

><p>"We'll get in trouble, Dean - I should go back to my room," Sam whispered fearfully, his breath billowing out in a cloud of frigid air. Dean clicked his tongue and clutched at Sam's mittened hand insistently, pulling him along behind him with a laugh. "Screw your room! It's my birthday; I can hang out with my brother if I want to." Sam shook his head, but he'd begun to smile despite his reluctance, bringing his other hand up to clasp his brother's.<p>

Dean was delighted; for whatever reason, Sam had been squeamish about touch since he was very little. During most of their playdates, he flinched away from Dean's hands, refrained from making direct contact with him even when they were horsing around. When he was really happy, though, he forgot himself and leaned into Dean's touch, like he was doing now. Dean had noticed when he crept into Sam's room through a low window that Sam didn't wear his ugly leather gloves when he was sleeping - the bare skin of his hands had looked pale and delicate in the moonlight.

When Dean had woken him up by hissing his name and urging him out the window with him, Sam had ditched the gloves in favor of the red mittens Dean had gifted him several years ago. Dean was glad; they suited him much better.

"Where're we going?" Sam asked him breathlessly as they ran across the deserted courtyard, winter wind whipping at their faces. "No idea," Dean answered, voice raised in exhilaration. He slowed when they passed a snowdrift, dragging Sam into it with him and snickering as he spluttered at the cold. He smushed a handful of snow into Sam's hair, doubling over when Sam shook his bangs out like a dog. "God, it's freezing out here! Is it always this cold outside?"

Dean realized then that the last time Sam had been in the courtyard was far too long ago, and resolved to make this outing worth remembering. "Hey, Sammy, you ever been in a snowball fight?" It was a stupid question, and Dean immediately followed it up by flinging a pathetically small snowball at Sam's chest. That escalated into a barrage of proper snowballs flung between them, the sound of their laughter and their scrabbling footfalls echoing in the quiet night. When they'd tired of running around, they collapsed into another snowdrift and stared up into the sky, speckled with falling flakes.

Dean felt comforted by Sam's warmth against his side, wished they could have fun like this more often, that their parents' wary eyes didn't keep them apart for reasons unbeknownst to him. He took Sam's hand again, his bare one around Sam's mittened one.

"You should've wore gloves, Dean. Your fingers are turning blue." Sam sat up and cupped both of Dean's hands protectively, a serious look appearing on his face. Dean flicked his nose, easing the tension back out of his features. "Stop worrying so much, stupid. It's like you're an old guy in the body of an eight-year-old." He grinned, but he could feel it fall off his face as he considered a familiar line of thought.

"Don't you ever wonder why?"

Sam turned away from him as if he already knew what Dean was talking about. "Why what?"

"Why you're stuck inside all the time, why you have to wear those dumb gloves everywhere. You never talk about it; doesn't it bother you?" Sam's face was closed off. "No, it's just how things are. It's best for everyone this way," he said, parroting their mom and dad's words.

Dean didn't know why, but he felt angry. So angry he trembled with it. "It's unfair and you know it." He wanted to say more, but didn't know how to form the words, didn't know what he could say that would do any good. Absently, he started to peel off one of Sam's mittens, somehow wanting to see his brother's hands again. Sam recoiled with a gasp, clutching his hands to himself.

"Don't! Don't, Dean."

Dean frowned, surprised. "Why not? What's the big deal about your hands, anyway? I saw them earlier, when I came to get you. They looked normal." Sam stared at the floor, expression shadowed.

"You can't, that's all."

"Did mom and dad tell you that?"

When Sam didn't answer, Dean reached for him again, gently pulling his mittens off one at a time. Sam shivered, biting his lip and whipping his eyes around like he expected a guard to walk into them at any moment. "See? Nothing's happening." Dean shoved Sam's mittens into his pocket and clasped his hands, weaving their fingers together. Sam shut his eyes tightly and exhaled, and Dean saw that he was still shaking. "Shhh. It's okay, see? It's okay."

Sam opened his eyes hesitantly and glanced from their entwined hands to Dean, something incredulous spreading over his face. "I...I guess...you're right." But before he'd finished saying it, Dean's vision started to waver and blur at the edges, and the feeling went out of his legs. He stumbled, clutching at Sam's shirt, head buzzing. "Dean? What's wrong - Dean!" It was the last thing he heard as the world melted away.

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><p>Sam rushed through the halls of the palace, yelling for his mother, tears streaming down his cheeks. He struggled with Dean's weight, nearly tripping and falling several times as he staggered forward in the direction of the master bedroom. The ruckus he was making had gotten the attention of a few of the guards, who clambered towards him, hands at their scabbards.<p>

"What happened to the young Master?" One of them pushed ahead of the others and halted him in his tracks, staring at Dean's limp body. When he noticed that Sam wasn't wearing his gloves, he took a nearly imperceptible step back. "I don't - I don't _know_. We were playing, I didn't mean to - " Sam started sobbing, his words dissolving into incoherency.

"Sam? What's the matter?"

His mother, Queen Mary of Arendelle, appeared at the end of the hallway, dressed in only her nightgown. He ran up to her and thrust Dean out for her to see, blubbering uselessly all the while. She pressed a hand to her mouth and fell to her knees, turning Dean onto his side and feeling at his neck, his chest. "Oh no. No, no, no, Sam. What have you done?"

"I didn't know - We just held hands. I didn't know," he whispered, feeling like his heart was shattering at the reality of Dean's gray, lifeless face. Mary tugged at her hair in distress, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. Sam desperately wanted to bury himself in her arms, but his hands were still uncovered; he _couldn't_. He understood that now more than ever, the sharp clarity of it taking his breath away. His mother stood up, then, hefting Dean up and striding determinedly to the nearest exit, Sam and a handful of guards trailing uncertainly behind her.

"Mom? Mom, what are we going to do? Where's dad?" She answered him without slackening her pace. "Your father's away on business, but don't you worry. I'll take care of everything." She carried on like that, with a confident spark in her eyes and a firmness to her step - despite the fact that she was barefoot and the ground outside was uneven and icy - until they arrived at a clearing in the woods. Sam hid his hands purposely in his pockets before brushing against his mother's side, fear and grief warring inside of him and making him yearn for physical comfort.

She carefully reached a hand down to stroke lightly at the top of his head. "It's alright, sweetheart. There's nothing to be afraid of." She turned to one of the younger guards. "It's time, Adam. I'm summoning him." The guard knelt on the frosted ground without a word as she chanted a string of strange syllables, indicating with a turn of her head that Sam should get behind her. As soon as her lips stopped moving, Adam's head jerked upward and his arms flew apart, a flash of searing white light emanating from his eyes. A harsh ringing noise assaulted Sam's ears, shaking what few leaves remained on the trees and causing the other guards to clap their hands to their ears.

Sam screwed his eyes closed against the cacophony of light and sound, clenching his hands tight inside his pockets. Deathly silence returned to the clearing after a slow minute had eclipsed.

"Mary. I didn't expect to hear from you again so soon."

A cold, metallic voice spoke through Adam's mouth, and Sam knew, somehow, that whatever was speaking was something frightfully powerful. The thing circled Mary languidly, hands clasped behind its back, eyes alighting lazily on Dean's unmoving form. "Happened already, has it? Hardly a surprise. I warned you of the dangers of keeping the other one alive, if I recall correctly." Mary tightened her grip on Dean and shifted slightly so that Sam was further concealed behind her skirts. "Don't taunt me, Raphael. And don't talk about my son like that. Just tell me what I have to do."

Raphael - whatever he was - paused and tilted Adam's head. "What if I told you it was not within my capacity to undo this." Mary bristled. "I _know_ you can do it, and I'm frankly getting tired of standing out here and playing word games with you. Name your price." The thing smiled disjointedly, sending a fresh jolt of fear through Sam and making him wish his father was there with them.

"This show that you're putting on is amusing, considering you are as familiar with the terms of such a request as I am. There exists a precarious balance in this particular universe; to act against that balance by restoring a life, I must remove another in its place. Rather inconvenient." Mary breathed out slowly, shooting Sam an unreadable glance before addressing Raphael once again. "If there was the slightest chance of any other way of saving Dean, I would walk away from you in an instant. But I know your kind - tricksters, the lot of you. As for the alternative - " Her gaze flickered to the ground.

"- It's not even worth contemplating. So...I accept the terms." Sam reached a hand out, meaning to tug at his mom's nightgown to get her attention, before _remembering_ and snatching his hand back. He nudged at the back of her dirt-stained foot with his shoe, instead. "What's gonna happen? Is Dean gonna be okay?" A bad feeling was bubbling up in his chest, and it only grew worse when Mary set Dean gently down and bent over to clasp Sam's shoulders. "Listen to me, Sam. I don't want you to blame yourself for any of this. It wasn't your fault, understand?"

Sam averted his eyes. "But I - "

"No. Don't think like that," Mary told him, gaze steady and sure. "You need to be brave for me and daddy, okay? You're a smart boy; I know you won't let anything like this happen again." Hot tears dripped off Sam's chin. "Okay," he replied hoarsely, not knowing what he was agreeing to. Mary kissed him on the forehead and stepped up to face Raphael, who was now staring directly at Sam.

"He's not wearing the gloves," the awful voice mused.

"Yes, we'd established that. What of it?"

"They were specially made to contain his power - though he is withholding his hands, you too should be dead right now. Perhaps he has more control over it than we thought."

"Enough talk. Do what I called you here to do. I'll see you in the afterlife."

"Dealing away your soul isn't exactly grounds for sainthood. All things considered, you might be headed in a different direction, dearest Mary."

Raphael touched two fingers to Mary's forehead, and suddenly, roaring flames were licking up the length of her body. Sam tripped backward and fell down, staring up in stark horror as his mother's skin charred and her nightgown was eaten away. The three other guards, who had been distantly surrounding Raphael and Mary in a watchful circle, shouted and waved their swords around in confusion, at a loss as to what to do. Just before Mary's golden locks went up in flames, her faint, garbled voice carried over to Sam, saying, "Watch out for Dean".

With her words still ringing in Sam's ears, her body disintegrated into nothing, leaving not even a scrap of cloth behind. It was then that Adam collapsed forward, panting heavily, all evidence of Raphael's presence gone.

And it was _then_ that everything else - the bewildered guards, the absence of his mom, the biting chill of the air in the woods - faded into the background as Dean sat himself up and blinked away the fog in his eyes, color beginning to seep back into his skin.

"Sam? What happened?"

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><p>When Dean was eighteen and Sam was fourteen, the news of their father's imminent death was announced. Dean was crushed, but he couldn't honestly say that he hadn't seen this coming; John had been hurtling toward his own death ever since he'd discovered his wife's untimely disappearance six long years ago. He'd locked himself in his room much like his youngest son, only appearing for a rare, awkwardly silent dinner with Dean and settling most of the kingdom's fiscal and diplomatic matters via his closest advisers, electing to spend most of his kingship in a drunken stupor.<p>

Dean resented him a little for that, for depriving him of the only familial interaction he was allowed to have - considering he didn't even know what his brother looked like anymore, and his mother had mysteriously vanished from his life when he was twelve. He would have tried to fill the chasm that grew inside him with the company of friends, but the castle was never open to the public - it never had been, and it probably never would be. The closest thing he had to friends were his small collection of tutors and servants, and even those began to peter out as the king's paranoia grew and he ordered that most of the staff be discharged.

The castle felt, to him, like a hulking dungeon, and if not for some instinctive need to _stay_, he might have run away a long time ago, just to glimpse the outside of it. Dean went to see John on his deathbed, blanching at how frail and disheveled his father looked now, when he had always looked so capable and strong in Dean's early childhood. "I need to know that you'll watch out for Sam," his father said to him, voice weaker than Dean thought it had any right to be.

"How can I watch out for him if he never comes out of his damned room? I haven't seen the kid in years."

John broke into a bout of coughing before speaking again. "You misunderstand. I need you to _watch out_ for him. We never told you this, Mary and I, but it was prophesied at his birth that he was destined for a great fall."

Dean's brow furrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?" A look of despair flickered across John's face, and his hands fisted in his bedsheets. "There's a darkness inside your brother. Sooner or later...it will consume him. It's inevitable." Dean took a deep breath to steady himself, stifling the urge to punch something.

"Why doesn't anybody ever tell me anything? I'm sick of feeling _coddled_, like I can't handle anything on my own. I've been kept in the dark for eighteen years, and you decide to dump this on me when you're _dying_? And what, you think Sam is some kind of a monster because of some half-assed prophecy? Is that it?"

The fight went out of him when John didn't take the bait, didn't raise his voice or send Dean away. He swallowed, breath hitching. "What do you expect me to do when you're gone, huh? I'm not ready to..." He trailed off and walked briskly out of the room after his eyes met his dad's crumpled face, shutting the heavy doors behind him.

Dean visited John several times after that, but the subject of Sam was never brought up again by either of them. They talked, instead, of the looming matter of Dean's coronation, of how he should start preparing to lead the kingdom. The discussions were terse and uncomfortable, with Dean silently fuming his way through many of them and John rendered incapable of speech at times due to his escalating sickness.

Though their meetings weren't exactly wholesome, Dean was quietly glad that his father seemed to be outliving his doctor's diagnosis, that it appeared he might live for a good while longer than was predicted. King John Winchester, regardless of whatever faults he might have had toward the end of his life, was a tenacious bastard, and he stubbornly hung on for four more years before finally dying in his sleep on a peaceful winter night.

The palace was shrouded in black for the memorial. Dean hardly noticed the difference.

**[TBC]**


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, uh, you awake? Sam? Dude, I'm getting crowned _king_ today, so you'll have to do what I tell you soon. And right now I'm telling you to come out."

Dean glared at the loathsome door to his brother's room. Over the years, Dean had frequently found himself in this same position, knocking tentatively on the varnished wood, pleading with Sam to talk to him. Needless to say, Sam never responded; never so much as tapped out an answer in morse code. Dean had pondered, when he was younger and smaller, slipping into Sam's room with the staffers who brought him his daily meals and books (bundle upon bundle of the latter), but whenever he tried it, he was noticed immediately by a servant or a guard and shooed off. He'd tried scaling the old oak tree outside Sam's window like he used to before, wanting to at least catch a glimpse of his brother, but his thick curtains were always so tightly drawn that not even a sliver of his bedroom could be seen. Somewhere down the line, Dean had bitterly resigned himself to having his brother's entire existence summed up by a locked door and a wavering thread of childhood memories.

Now, though? _Now_ was his coronation, and if his first act as king was to command several guards to drag Sam out so Dean could see his stupid face and so he could attend an actual gathering of people for once in his life, then so be it. He leaned his forehead against the door, overcome with nervous tension. His dad was dead, all of Arendelle was awaiting his rule, and he just wanted his little brother to be there with him. "Come on, Sam. The gates are open for the first time - half the kingdom'll be there. Don't you wanna see what this place looks like when it's not barren? Aren't you excited?" The silence that answered him was as familiar to him as the back of his hand.

He sighed miserably, palms flat against the door. "Didn't see you at dad's funeral the other day. I don't know why, but I feel like - I needed you there, and you were hiding away up here. I just - I want us to be there for each other, you know? We're all that's left of our family. I want us to be _brothers_ again." He turned to go, sluggish with disappointment.

He'd taken several steps when he heard the muffled sound of somebody speaking from behind Sam's door.

Dean tripped over himself in his rush to press his ear against it, banging his forehead on the wall and making his eyes water. "What? Sorry, I didn't catch that." Dean winced at how embarrassingly eager he sounded. His heartbeat was hammering like it hadn't in as long as he could remember.

"I...I said I'll be there. At the ceremony."

Dean gaped at the door, frozen in astonishment as his brain tried to process what had just happened. Sam had talked to him. For the first time in ten years. Sam was getting out of his room. Sam was coming to support him in front of his newly-established subjects. Dean started to grin uncontrollably, trying to imagine, as he had done in the past, what his brother looked like now. He attempted to put together the voice he'd just heard - low, gruff - with the blurry image of Sam he had in his head, but it didn't fit at all. It didn't matter, though, because in an hour, he would get to see Sam in the flesh, talk to him, make up for lost time.

"Okay. Okay, Sam. I'll see you then." There was no response, but Dean felt lightheaded with happiness anyway. He strode toward his own room with renewed vigor, smiling to himself like an idiot as he prepared for the start of his coronation.

* * *

><p>Dean had trouble concentrating during the ceremony, because every so often he would tune out the old cleric's reverberating words and search the crowd for somebody who resembled Sam. He tugged at the stuffy collar of his cloak, wanting to take his oaths and hurry off the platform. After the diadem was finally lowered onto his head and the audience had exploded into raucous applause, Dean practically leaped into the crowd, smiling politely and bowing out when anyone tried to engage him in conversation. He looked left and right for any sign of someone who looked like what he remembered of Sam, growing anxious and impatient. When someone said his name without any accompanying honorifics - no "Your Majesty", no "King"; just "Dean" - he spun around with his heart in his throat.<p>

"Sam?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me."

Dean didn't bother pretending that he wasn't staring. There was a _lot_ to stare at, for one thing. His eyes traveled up Sam's seemingly endless legs, his wide chest and broad shoulders, until they finally arrived at his face. Sam's gaze was pointed squarely at the ground, and his hair - just as long as Dean remembered it - was hanging over his eyes and casting a shadow on his features. After a minute, the only thing Dean managed to get out was, "Damn, you got _tall_".

Sam made a sound that vaguely resembled a laugh. "So did you," he pointed out.

"No, but you're, like. A giant. What've they been feeding you in there?"

He didn't know how he felt about having his kid brother tower over him - especially when the last time he'd seen him, he was a skinny little runt and about two heads shorter than him. It was disorienting, to say the least. "So, anyway. Um. Congratulations," Sam said, scuffing the toe of his boot over the marble floor awkwardly. "You were great up there."

Dean widened his eyes. "Really? I was mostly trying not to strangle myself with this goddamn cape. I guess flaming physical discomfort looks good on me." Sam laughed for real, dimples making an appearance.

Dean only realized that he was staring again when Sam froze up and returned to making eye contact with his feet. Dean marveled at the fact that, though his little brother had grown into a man when he wasn't looking, he still behaved as nervously and as self-consciously as he had as a child. It was reassuring and discouraging at the same time. He reached up for Sam's shoulder instinctively, startling when Sam flinched away like he'd been burned. "Sorry," Sam mumbled, blushing. Dean made a face. "Still apologizing for everything, huh? Don't do that. It was my fault - I forgot you had a thing about not touching."

"It's - I'm sorry. I should be getting back now." He turned swiftly, shoulders hunched like he wanted to make himself look smaller. Dean blocked his path before he could get too far. "Sam, wait! Please don't go. Please? I'll shut up, I promise. We don't even have to do anything, we can just...sit. Together." Sam looked wistfully over Dean's shoulder at the flight of winding stairs that led to his room.

"O-okay. But," he pulled at his hair and lowered his voice so that Dean could barely make out what he was saying over the undercurrent of noise surrounding them. "Can we get out of here? Away from all this..." He swiped a large gloved hand at the chattering throng of people around them, swaying to the lilt of the music and laughing and clinking champagne glasses together. Dean nodded enthusiastically.

"Sure, yeah. Whatever you want."

* * *

><p>For some elusive reason, Dean <em>yearned<em> to touch Sam, to tug at the curls at the nape of his neck, to trace his prominent cheekbones. The urge was mortifying - he wasn't some lovelorn girl, for god's sake - but shockingly strong. It was probably only because he couldn't do so without the risk of sending Sam back into hiding for good, that he urgently wanted to know what would happen if he, say, thumbed at Sam's bottom lip, or placed a hand at the small of his back. It seemed as good an explanation as any. Or maybe it was just that Dean hadn't known the pleasure of physical intimacy since he lost his virginity to a traveling seamstress when he was seventeen. He really needed to find a willing woman or two before the party downstairs ended and the castle emptied itself out. Dean was jolted out of gazing carelessly at the strong line of Sam's jaw when Sam broke the silence at long last.

"I've never been up here before. It's...beautiful."

They were sitting out on the balcony that Dean knew had the best view in the whole place, gracing them with the sight of the kingdom spread out beneath them like an intricate latticework stippled with light and dark. The sky above them had bled into evening a while ago, the oranges and reds and pinks painting stripes of vibrance across wisps of cloud. "Yeah. It's really something."

"Can we come back up here when it's dark out? I...I kind of wanna see the stars. If that's okay with you, of course." He shot Dean a nervous glance from under his bangs, like he wasn't allowed to do anything at all without Dean's say-so. Dean ignored the pang that went through him, saying, "_Back_ up here? Are you going somewhere?" His brother took stock of the worry that had evidently shown on his face.

"Oh, I didn't - I didn't mean I was leaving. I meant...I'm up for going downstairs now. Mingling, inhaling hors d'oeuvres, that kind of thing? Is that okay?" Dean blinked at him, a dumbfounded smile creeping onto his face.

"Hell _yeah_, it's okay. Let's go." The two of them made their way down to the ballroom, Sam deliberately keeping several feet between himself and Dean the whole time. When the partygoers caught sight of Dean at the top of the stairs, the buzz of casual conversation turned to a reverential murmur. As soon as he'd made it out of the stairwell, he was mobbed - guests from neighboring countries and Arendelle locals alike offering him their congratulations and wishing him a long and healthy reign. He smiled and waved and nodded, doing his best to play through his discomfiture and put his long-forgotten social etiquette lessons to use. There was a Sam-shaped gap at his side, however, and he couldn't shake the niggling fear that Sam had disappeared back into isolation.

He couldn't help it when his eyes wandered to the fringes of the ballroom while he humored the guests, discreetly seeking out the thick mop of hair that he knew would be clearly visible due to Sam's height. He kept his fingers crossed that, if nothing else, Sam would be waiting for him back on the balcony when the stars came out that night.

* * *

><p>Sam crept away from Dean when the spotlight was shined on him, uncomfortable with the crowd and hyper-aware that most of these guests wouldn't even know who Sam was - that while it was common knowledge that there also existed a <em>prince<em> of Arendelle, nobody aside from the royal guard and a few assorted attendants had really set eyes on him in decades. He discovered that he was happy with that fact, that he could slink along the edges of the party, unnoticed and unrecognized. It was freeing. Though he had broken away from Dean lest anybody start asking unwanted questions about him and spread the message that the young king was associating himself with his useless shut-in of a younger brother, he hadn't been lying to Dean when he'd told him he wanted to join the gathering.

His sense of curiosity was chewing away at him, after all, and he hadn't been surrounded by so many people in his entire eighteen years of life. His eyes hungrily took in the glittering radiance of the chandeliers, the tables overflowing with interesting-looking food, the gorgeous multi-hued ball gowns that whispered across the Karelian marble. He'd only ever read about formal events like this in books, and the stories and illustrations paled in comparison to experiencing the real thing. It saddened him to think that when he would eventually return to the dim recesses of his room before the night ended, he wouldn't get another chance to immerse himself firsthand in Arendellian culture for who knew how long. The thought drew him up short, and his breath caught as he imagined how disappointed Dean would be in him for continuing to shut himself away, how he would finally acknowledge him as the disgusting failure that he was, what he might say to him though his door.

Sam didn't want that to happen, but he realized he'd much prefer it to Dean giving up on him once and for all and never again coming upstairs to speak in hushed tones against the outside of his door. There had been times when it felt like Dean had finally thrown in the towel and forgotten all about him, but by some arcane miracle, he always came back. It was what kept Sam sane over the years, the discernible sound of Dean's footsteps thumping leisurely down the hall, the cadence of his voice when he rambled about whatever was on his mind that week, that month. Sam had never responded, not once, but he fiercely wished that he could have. He'd pressed his head against the inside of his door all through his late childhood and his adolescence, and listened intently to Dean's fears, his evolving likes and dislikes, the occasional oddity or phenomenon that he wondered about.

When Dean had sex for the first time, Sam was the first one to hear about it. It was Sam who Dean told, and not their late father, about how much he abhorred the isolationist doctrine of their foreign relations policy. Sam knew that Dean was afraid of heights, but that he actively sought out every elevated spot in the castle because he enjoyed getting a bird's-eye view of the panorama below. He knew that Dean had a bit of a drinking problem (though Dean himself would never have admitted to it), and that he had a knack for learning dead languages impressive enough to rival Sam's. Sam had collected many such pieces of his brother over time, cherished them individually before adding them to the schema of insight he had into Dean's person. Pathetic though it might be, it gave his life meaning.

So if Dean decided that Sam's inability to live like a normal person (which, of course, he _wasn't_) warranted something as tame as a bit of verbal belittlement, Sam would happily take it. He was a freak, after all, and Dean seemed to have missed that memo. It would be a luxury if _anybody_ started seeing him for what he was, let alone the person he most cared about - maybe it would thin the choking guilt and self-loathing that he'd been living with since Dean's twelfth birthday.

Sam was abruptly knocked out of his reverie when someone crashed into him. He jumped back from the contact, breaths quickening, palms beading with sweat inside the warm leather of his gloves. The person who'd accidentally jostled him - a girl with lustrous black hair and a dark red gown to match the lipstick she was wearing - turned to him, mouth curved into a delicate 'o' of surprise. "I'm sorry! I didn't see you there...Uh, sir? Sir?Are you okay?" Her arms hovered near him uncertainly, and he cowered, putting his hands on his knees to anchor himself as he started to hyperventilate.

"I'm - sorry. M'okay. Sorry to - bother you." He couldn't get enough air into his lungs, and his face was burning at how much of a fool he was making of himself. "Listen, you don't look so good. I think you need some fresh air. Come with me." The girl reached out a tiny hand for him to take, undeterred when he just gaped skittishly at it in between frantic, gulping breaths. She grabbed him by the cuff of his sleeve and pulled him firmly along behind her, paying no mind to the people who stared at them when they stumbled past. She didn't speak another word to him until they'd walked out of the grand hall and into the crisp night air.

"Is that better? Are you alright?"

Her perfect forehead was creased with concern as he sucked in several deep inhales and tried to calm himself. As soon as he'd gotten his voice back, he put a couple of safe inches between them and said, "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you. I'm sorry for being a hindrance - how can I repay you for your kindness?" Her lips quirked into an amused smile, and she waved a hand dismissively. "No repayment necessary. I didn't exactly save you from a burning building, you know? Not a whole lot to be grateful for. You, ah. You seem very...apologetic."

"Sorry," Sam blurted automatically. He dragged a hand over his face abashedly, feeling like an even bigger dunce. The girl just laughed good-naturedly and grinned up at him.

"I'm Ruby, princess of the Southern Isles. You got a name?"

**[TBC]**


End file.
